Serial peeper gets three years... quickly
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James Stearn likes to look, according to his police record.CHARLOTTESVILLE POLICE
James Stearn, the man who inspired the General Assembly to pass a three-strikes law against serial voyeurism, may serve three years for his latest infraction, according to the Newsplex, which reports that jurors needed only five minutes on Thursday, March 22, to convict 50-year-old Stearn of a recent peeping incident during which he allegedly left a fingerprint at the scene.
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9 comments
Not that I really want to defend this guy, but passing a law that requires people to register as sex offenders -- a very serious punishment that can have ramifications for a person's entire life -- should require more justification than one person's behavior. If this guy is the only person we know of who is a repeat offender, then passing a law to punish him specifically is just a short step from a bill of attainder, except that it will be on the books indefinitely. I also worry about the law of unintended consequences, that years from now there will be a less clear-cut case that will result in someone being forced to register as a sex offender.
Every time some crime is committed the government passes a new law citing the crime committed as justification for the law it seems. More laws more crime, more crime more laws, when will it ever end?
Politicians are lawyers, what better way to keep yourself and your buddies in work than to pass more laws.
I bet he was whackin it while peepin
I'm with Withington. But it is also true that deviant perps all have their own favorite flavor, and peepers and exhibitionists tend to stick with what blows their dresses up. For the most part they stick exclusively with that and don't get into the whole rape/abduction/murder thing. So creepy though it may be these people are not a huge threat, but don't let me be misconstrued as suggesting they not be punished.
Laws..laws and more laws. You would think that eventually they will have passed every possible law and then some.
Has Blink suggested this man might be related to the Morgan Harrington case yet? I bet he's sending her hinky meter into convulsions!
What they really wanted to do is pass a law that said, "If your mug shot looks like this, you're out."
I think he looks a tad like Buffalo Bill from "The Silence of the Lambs" (remember..."Are you a size 14? Mmmmm, great." If this guy were peepin' in my window, I would do the opposite of Mommy Dearest and "tear down that bitch of a window and put a bearing wall where it ought to be!"
R.I.P.: Madge Blake